Feedback for 10/29: Doonesbury and Mega Millions

Where is Doonesbury?

•How long is Doonesbury going to be flashbacks? It seems like it's been months. Is he on vacation or something, or semi-retired?

Editor: "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau has been working on "Alpha House," a satire TV project for Amazon Studios starring John Goodman. He took the daily strip on hiatus over the summer to work on the program about four Republican senators who share a house in Washington, D.C. (Yes, a ripped from the headlines theme based on four Democratic senators who lived together.) Trudeau was supposed to bring "Doonesbury" back after Labor Day, but posted announcements that he was running behind with the TV program. At the moment, the daily strip is scheduled for a return on Nov. 18. In the meantime, "Doonesbury" fans will only see new material in the Sunday comics. For more about the pilot of "Alpha House," go to Amazon.com. Here's the tagline for the pilot from Amazon: "Re-election battles, looming indictments, parties, their Party ... these senators need a drink. And a new housemate."

Longshot lottery odds

•Burt, York County: I have a question about the new lottery tickets. There was an article about how they're changing again, and I cannot see how you can write an article and not put the old odds and the new odds in when you talk about changing the game.

Editor: Mike Holtzclaw wrote the article "Mega Millions gets new format" on Oct. 25. He said the lottery reports the odds of winning the big jackpot in Mega Millions by matching all five numbers plus the mega ball under the old format is 1 in 175,711,536. Under the new format the odds are 1 in 258,890,850. For information on the odds of winning all the other prizes in the game, go to megamillions.com or valottery.com.

Today's Feedback responses were written by Features Editor Felicia Mason.